Hidden Antagonism. Factions and Factional Conflict at the French Court (c. 1280-1380)

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The court and the aristocratic society of late medieval France is characterised by profound party antagonisms that so far have been neglected by scholars. Attention has been paid to those constellations only in which the resulting conflicts escalate into bloodshed - such as the well-known dispute between 'Armagnacs' and 'Bourguignons' at the beginning of the 15th century. The factional conflicts of the 13th and 14th centuries are no less significant, but they are conducted in other ways and have therefore received less attention. In fact, party strife and factional antagonism are most often latent phenomena inside the late medieval French 'political society‘ (Raymond Cazelles). They are hidden behind consensus façades or clothed in other discursive wrappings by external observers and participants alike. To quote an example: Factional ‚aggression ‘can be justified with the effort to secure the royal estate - even if the real aim is mainly excluding competing groups from royal gifts. Previous research has examined these discourses almost exclusively from the perspective of the history of law or ideas and has paid little attention to their factional background. In contrast, the project will focus on the interdependencies between conflict discourse and factional antagonism. A prerequisite for this is a comprehensive survey of factional conflict in the French kingdom of the 13th and 14th centuries – a task which has not been undertaken so far. For this purpose, archival as well as historiographical sources will be studied under specific aspects listed in the application. On this basis, several constellations of factional strife will be analysed in detail. This will be done in cooperation with Olivier Canteaut (Paris), who will be associated to the project as a ‚Mercator Fellow‘. The results of the research will be published in a monograph for which Canteaut and the applicant will be jointly responsible.